Delhi gangrape victim's friend to be cross-examined today

Source :

Last Updated: Wed, Feb 06, 2013 06:50 hrs

New Delhi: The trial of the five men charged with gangraping and brutalising a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in the national capital on Dec 16 will continue on Wednesday, with the software engineer man who was accompanying the victim to be cross-examined by the defence lawyers.

The prosecution on Tuesday had called four witnesses, including the software engineer man, who was with the victim and had tried to save her.

The software engineer was accompanying the medical student on the bus during the attack on Dec 16 last year.

Before brutalising and raping the girl, he was also hit badly with an iron rod and he is still unable to walk properly.

The engineer on Tuesday arrived in court on a wheelchair, escorted by his father.

The 28-year-old identified the white bus as the vehicle on which the deadly assault took place, his father said.

The Delhi Police, meanwhile, filed a supplementary chargesheet in the case.

It included the victim's autopsy report from the Singapore hospital where she died on Dec 29.

Before her death, the victim had recorded her statement. That would be crucial evidence in the case.

The Delhi gangrape victim's father on Tuesday said he wanted death penalty for all the six accused in the case.

"I only want that all six people should be hanged," the victim's father told media.

On Saturday, the five pleaded not guilty to the charges read out to them. They could face death penalty, if convicted.

A fast-track court in Delhi framed charges against the five accused in the Delhi gang-rape case on the same day.

The sixth accused, a juvenile, is being tried by juvenile justice board. He faces a maximum punishment of three years in a reform facility.

The police has said he was the most brutal among the assaulters.

Juvenile accused held alone for own safety

Meanwhile, a report on Reuters said that officials at a juvenile detention facility in Delhi have taken the unusual step of keeping the teenager isolated from other detainees for his own safety.

They say the brutality of the attack angered the other inmates, some of whom have been convicted of murder.

Two officers from the team responsible for the youth's care have for the first time described in detail to Reuters the youth's life in the unit for violent young offenders since his arrest

The boy is kept away from other detainees, who would attack him if they could, the officers responsible for his care said.

"They watch the television in the dormitories and get very angry when they see news of the rape," one of the officers said.

The officers said the youth had proclaimed his innocence and blamed his co-accused.

Officials have also told how the youth was taken to hospital just days after his arrest, complaining of acute abdominal pains.

He was diagnosed with appendicitis and immediately operated on, according to three people, including a hospital official, with knowledge of his case.